Hablar en otra lengua… (To speak in another language)

Today was a day of thinking. To some this may come as no surprise, and to my good friends it may possibly be a huge surprise that I do actually think. It was a day where I questioned what I am doing, why I am doing it, why I think it is important, among other things. So when dinner time came around and I was sitting at the dinner table with my host-dad, I let him have it. I opened up one box of worms after another. First I told him how I was not raised with any specific religion, then about how religion was explained to me by my father- (as a fence on a cliff top of a mountain on a deserted island, that some feel better with, and some are annoyed that people keep trying to put up fences for them, they just want to look down and see what there is to see, but there is no shame in wanting or not wanting the fence)(my interpretation of Dad’s description, don’t sue me!), then we talked about some semi-religious experiences (for you fencers) or coincidences (for you non-fencers) I have had, then we talked about the universe and the unknown, and we finally landed on my inability to find a way back to the feeling of satisfaction I vividly remember from the end of long days as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Although the specific stories I told him, and he told me, are interesting and worthy of a blog post (but let’s be honest, if I got a bad infection I’d think it was cool enough for a blog entry), they are not what I came out of dinner thinking about.

It is the fact that the whole conversation, the whole heart-to-heart, the connection we made, it was all done in Spanish. It is not important that it was done in specifically Spanish either, because it is just another way to put thoughts together. What I realized is that this other language was like a mask to me. Sometimes in English it is hard to show your face, your true colors, to even people that you know extremely well. It is a language we all know and use every day, so if we do not express what we are thinking correctly it is out of laziness, or even worse, lack of intellectual capacity. Sometimes it just sounds silly or absurd to hear our thoughts so starkly in a language we use all the time. Therefore a lot of times we keep quiet even when we have something we really want to question or mention or simply chat about. The fear of failure to express your thoughts or be judged or considered different keeps us in line, in check, and under wraps. But in Spanish it is like I am wearing a mask. I am not supposed to know exactly how to express every single thought I have with the most versatile word structure, I just need to communicate. The words that I use and the way that I say them- they are my mask. The way my eyes connect with theirs and the way I look down when something really makes me think- that all shapes the mask as well. I put on this mask and they see me. I can really reach across boundaries with the mask. It is something that transcends religion and language and culture.

I grew up in a suburb of Connecticut in a fairly comfortable lifestyle and economic bracket. My host-mother here grew up in a campo like the one I served in while in the DR, and my host-father was a crazy young kid in the city who changed from a heavy drinker and revolutionary who watched many friends die in wars to an architect and highly religious and insightful human being. Somehow, by way of una otra lengua, we completely understood each other tonight. I realized that moments like these are what make me keep searching for ways to return to the Peace Corps lifestyle. That real connection that happens when you put on your mask and finally someone can really see you, it is priceless. The fact that you know that your words weren’t the only reason that they saw you is indescribable. They saw you because of everything you did and said and acted but also because they were looking for you. They were searching for you, had their hands on your face with their eyes closed, feeling around and trying to make out the bends, corners, ins and outs of your mask. When they finally see it, see you, and appreciate you for sharing with them who you are, en otra lengua, it cannot be beat. That is the joy that speaking in another language brings to me, if only rarely, and is part of the reason I keep coming back to places like this.

El Porvenir - Sustainability Report

After leaving Blue Energy I headed back to the west half of Nicaragua, to the edge of a volcano where I had helped to design and install a community water pumping system over 3 years ago.The community, El Porvenir, is made up of 59 families from very mixed backgrounds. As Nicaraguan history has shown, this is a nation of very distinct ideological groups. The Contra War of the 70’s divided the country and led to immense amounts of bloodshed, mostly in the northern mountain region. El Porvenir is proof that organization can lead to peace, as the community is comprised of Contras, Sandinistas, past military advisors, and political officials. They have formed a communal cooperative and live mostly on the profits from bi-annual coffee harvests.Through connections with an NGO in Managua, they have achieved fair-trade organic, rustic shade grown coffee status. They export their coffee to another NGO and roaster based in Pittsburgh (yes, Pittsburgh!) called Building New Hope. All hours worked by cooperative members are counted and then directly translate into an equivalent share of profits from sales.

Over three years ago as an undergraduate student I was looking for a senior design project that would have some MEANING and would be really VALUABLE to someone. Through connections with the service-learning office at Bucknell University I, and three other fellow students, designed a project to provide water to El Porvenir. At that time the cooperative’s only water source was a fresh-water well at the base of the volcano they are perched on, 1200 feet and 5 Km. below. The well, over 400 feet deep was fitted with a deep-well pump and powered by a diesel generator. The pump delivered the water to a steel water tank near the well, still at the bottom of the volcano. The cooperative also has three very large storage tanks up in their community, and catch rainwater whenever possible to satisfy all of their needs for water. In the approximately six-month “dry season” when rain was not consistent, they were forced to get water from the well at the bottom of the mountain. This meant they relied on their ancient Ford 500 diesel farm tractor to drive the 45 minute trip down the hill, fill up as many water jugs as possible, and then head back up the hill. Multiple trips were made every day to ensure that every person in the community was allowed at least two gallons of water every day. Six hours of work and 1,085 Córdoba (~$43 USD) was spent on gas and workers every day. It was not an easy life.

My team and I designed and installed a water pumping system that took water from the tank at the bottom of the mountain all 5 Km. up to the storage tanks in the community. The pump was run by an electric motor, with power from the same diesel generator already in use.

This summer I wanted to come back and see how everything was doing and, for the first time, speak with the men I had sweat with in construction over three years ago. Now I speak Spanish, and back in my university days all I could generate was a simple “hola”. To make the trip even more special, I was driven up the mountain by members of the Alumni Trip of the Bucknell Brigade, the service-learning trip at Bucknell that first exposed me to Nicaragua. We arrived at the top of the mountain after some slipping and sliding on the muddy trail uphill, and I immediately recognized a boy standing there watching these gringos drive up to their home. I asked him name, and he told me it was Alexander. I distinctly remembered him from a picture I have from my trip three years ago. The picture was of me chasing him around his school, much smaller, smiling ear-to-ear. He is the boy on the right. It was surreal to see him again, all grown up. I snapped a quick picture with him, and just kinda chuckled to myself. This world is crazy.

All in all I spent a week up in El Porvenir, sleeping in a hammock on the community center porch overlooking Nicaraguas valleys and volcanos, and waking up to the sunrise early in the morning(sometimes, haha). It was great to see people collecting water from the tanks at the top of the mountain, even though I was there during the rainy season and the pump was not being used. The galvanized steel pipe that entered the tank made the project very real. I was not involved in the installation of the pipeline, as that occurred well after the pump house construction which I worked on, so it was extremely satisfying seeing the project FINISHED.

I spent the days talking with people about the system, walking every inch of the pipeline, turning on the pumps and see the system work, and interviewing/auditing the water committee. All in all I am proud to say that the system looks to be pretty sustainable, overall. In terms of saving time and money to the community, the system is doing great. Before its installation I calculated that every home was receiving 10 gallons of water, and to provide these 10 gallons per house the cooperative was expending 3 hours of work and $542 Córdoba. Now that the system is installed I have calculated that each house is receiving at least 20 gallons. As a comparison to the previous system, to provide each 10 gallons per house, I calculated that the cooperative is expending about 15 minutes of work and $213 Córdoba. They are saving about 2 hours and 45 minutes of work as well as $329 Cordoba ($15 USD) for each 10 gallons of water they receive, and they have also at least doubled their water availability in the dry season. The system seems to be in good working condition and, in this first year of operation with many quick repairs and fixes, the cooperative handled all hurdles that came their way.

All in all, I feel extremely lucky to have been given the chance to go back and see, talk to, and get to know the people of El Porvenir. And I have to say, it was great to see how satisfied the whole community was with the project, and proud they were to finally have a constant water source year round.

I even had a chance to chow down on some forest iguana-doesn’t look as cute all skinned does it?

Bluefields - The Reggae Coast

It has been a while since I added an update- and a lot has happened!

First, I spent a month on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua learning from a small NGO called Blue Energy. Blue Energy works to provide basic services to remote villages on the east coast of Nicaragua. They maintain offices in Bluefields-Nicaragua, San Francisco-California, and Paris-France. The Bluefields office is where all of the action happens. For the past 6 years Blue Energy has been working to provide basic services, focusing on electricity, to the small remote villages along the coast. It has not been easy. First of all, transportation to these communities is only possibly by boat. Some of them have a rudimentary public “panga” transportation system comprised of small motorboats, but some of them have no public transport whatsoever. No roads exist, and locals only come and go with their personal motorboats (if they are wealthy enough) or by hitching rides with fisherman as they come and go. This makes project planning, coordination, community interaction, and continual project oversight very difficult.

Blue Energy has been struggling to deal with these problems, on top of the inherent difficulty of engineering design and technology transfer. They have implemented mostly hybrid wind-solar electricity systems within the communities they work with. The wind turbines are manufactured in Bluefields by Blue Energy volunteers (mostly international) and employees (mostly local Nicaraguans) in a workshop donated for Blue Energy use by the local technical college, INATEC.The design is based on a low-cost wind turbine developed by Hugh Pigott of Scoraigwind.com.Copper coil stators, hand-cut steel rotors mounted with high-power magnets, hand-carved wooden turbine blades, the supporting steel framework, and galvanized steel support towers are all manufactured in house from readily available materials found in hardware stores. Over the years, design and fabrication improvements have made the process more streamlined, although much is still done completely by hand with the “measure twice, cut once” mentality.

In communities they have worked with the wind turbines are paired with a small solar array. Together, the two provide power to a bank of batteries, used to power a local community center or small health clinic. The idea is very powerful, and very attractive. But many problems have caused setbacks to this idealistic bunch of young employees and volunteers. First of all, the problem was defined as an engineering one from the get-go: how to provide electricity with wind and sun in the difficult conditions of the Caribbean coast. Blue Energy has realized that possibly the most important piece of the puzzle is community integration and understanding, as poorly maintained batteries, increasing maintenance costs, and less than ideal wind conditions have caused them to reconsider the use of wind turbines in every community. Two local women and a small team of volunteers head up the “Community” team and have tried to maintain better relations with the local energy committees, helped them organize and raise funds, and tried to help the technical team guide their designs in a more appropriate direction. Although the community team has obviously made huge strides, the results are mixed. The decision has been made to remove the turbines from various communities, leaving the solar array as their source of electricity. Also, lack of communication with the local government has led to the arrival of mini-grids of electricity in communities with BE energy systems, making them all-but obsolete. On the short team, the Renewable Energy system is more economical than the grid as no fees are needed to provide electricity, but on the long term the sky-high prices of deep-cycle batteries will ultimately render the systems cost-prohibitive, that is, unless the community organizes a fairly hefty battery-replacement savings account. Many problems are left to be solved.

.Blue Energy is also attempting to branch into areas of other basic services such as potable water and economic development. They have developed their own bio-sand water filter construction system and have placed more than 20 filters in communities, some purchased and some donated. Still, lack of sufficient funding seems to be hamstringing their operations. They are coming to the end of a large grant that has covered most funding over the past year or so and are waiting for hopeful approval of more, larger grants. Sadly, the grant approval process seems to have no definite time schedule and in the mean time people are waiting…

Nevertheless, I was lucky enough to visit some communities with Blue Energy systems, help with some wind turbine tweaking, climb up a turbine tower and help lower it for maintenance, as well as observe BE volunteers in action fixing damaged systems, installing new batteries, and training locals in system maintenance. Blue Energy is up against it, but one can only hope that with every day they will learn more and develop a model for rural development that will benefit their communities in a environmentally, economically, and most importantly socially sustainable manner.

Still gets me...

How is it that while working in another latin country after two semesters back at university in the states that the DR still hits me in the chest?? Just sitting here with my mosquito net in Bluefields, Nicaragua, I put on some Aventura and begin editing the Fulbright essays I am writing. Although I am writing about Peru, the music brings me back to the campo of the DR. I miss the people, the culture, the tools I used ever day, and the men I worked with. Then I get a message from a friend who is still working in the DR, that she was in a town near my village the other day and a guy came up to her and told her, "Oh, that Roberto. He brought water to a community. Tell him I said hi." Can't help it. It hits me. Is it possible that one period of your life can be so rich and heavy with emotion that for the rest of your life a simple reminder of it puts you right back in? I love the feeling, but it hurts. Those two years seem to be untouchable and unforgettable. I left the DR 10 months ago. How far I have come is amazing but it pales in comparison to how far I have left to go.

How do I go forward when the biggest smile I have ever had was 1.5 years ago... Remembering is not enough.

Hydro Hydro Everywhere

I am officially back in the saddle, and it feels good(haven't lost the butt groove or anything!). The last couple of weeks I have been absolutely thrown into the world of small-scale hydroelectric projects in the northern region of Nicaragua. I spent the first week accompanying a Villanova University service trip to help them design a community-based micro-hydro system, then spent a week on my own talking to the Ministry of Energy, the Municipal Engineer, local engineers who are incredible entrepreneurs and have perfected the art of extracting energy from water, community-based energy committees, carpenters who now have electric tools, and lots of communities including some with damaged or completely broken systems. It has been overwhelming, but invigorating! Feels great.

One interesting feedback loop that stuck in my head:

The small community of Acote Tumba is situated up in the municipality of Waslala, about an

hour into the hills from the town center. The village consisted of only 12 homes five years ago and they were selected by the municipality to receive a hydroelectric project. The surveying was done, and as the designs were being made and the community was being groomed to organize themselves and form their 'comite', more people moved into the village. By the time construction started a year later the village had swelled to around 20 homes! Construction began and more and more people kept moving in, so by the the time they were ready to finally install the turbine and generator, they all knew that it wouldn't provide enough electricity for everyone. They submitted a request to the municipality to have the generator upgraded to a higher capacity, and it was approved. Well, by approved I mean that the municipality said that if they fundraised enough money to offset most of the cost difference then they would have no problem installing a larger system. The first problem is that the penstock was sized for a smaller system and was already installed. Fine, so construction continued and concluded successfully.

They hooked up the lights of the 20-some homes and everyone clapped. Yay! A year later the village had exploded and it now had around 44 homes! The word was out! Acote Tumba had electricity and everyone wanted in. As more people moved in, mostly farmers, they bought up land in the surrounding area. As more and more people came to this small valley, tracts of land further and further up the hill began to sell. Eventually farms were being sold above the water source that had powered the electrification and subsequent expansion of the community. Now,

four years after the completion of the project, the energy committee president told me that he thought the stream had about half of the flow that it did back then. People had deforested the watershed of the stream and it no longer flowed with the same amount of water, for the same period of time. Now the community is involved in a project to reforest some of the area above the water source, as are many communities in the area that have realized that environmental conservation is not a game with hydroelectric projects. The development that the hydro project spurred has come around and threatened the viability of the hydro resources in the area. What do you do? Hydro projects are typically over sized to account for community expansion, but in these rural areas they become extremely expensive. Costs are cut and system designs are sometimes scaled back. You cannot always provide enough supply to meet the every-expanding demand, and the environment cannot handle it either. There is a give and take and a balance must be struck in the middle.

It isn't easy to make technology work in this kind of environment. I also am pretty sure its not easy for the politicians and other government employees to keep their sticky fingers off of the funds that have come pouring into this country for hydro projects. It doesn't add up, when a million dollars is spent to give basic electricity to a couple hundred people.

I also had the pleasure of accompanying a local engineering, machinist, entrepreneur, you name it and he has probably done it as far as small hydro goes- a man by the name of George Op Den Bosch. He lives and works here in Matagalpa building custom hydroelectric systems. This morning he took me around a project of his that is under construction on the nearby hacienda of a wealthy Frenchman. Over the land area of the very large farm, George will capture nearly all of the water potential, a total of 3 MW, with a system of seven smaller turbines that work in parallel and in series. Water is piped down to the maximum penstock pressures that can be managed with local pipe materials, and the discharge flows of the turbine are then directed into yet another penstock and energy is extracted again at a lower elevation. Using staged and parallel systems of this form, George has managed to piece together previous hydro systems and virtually all of the water resources of the area to produce 3 MW of renewable energy that has been approved to be sold back to the Nicaraguan electricity utility, a first for the area. He expects his customer to be very happy as he has estimated the project to make upwards of a half of a million DOLLARS every year in profit simply from selling electricity to the grid.

Now the big question right?! Not an original one of my own- How do you get the skill and efficiency of George(the private sector) to provide services to some of the poorest and most marginalized people of this country, without creating an environment where being poor makes them less desirable customers???

If you have an answer, let me know.

I am back off to the capital in a couple days, and then am heading to Bluefields to learn with Blue Energy Group about the next set of technologies available for electrification of isolated communities.

The saddle feels good - and what do you know, a year spent back in school and I still know how to ride!